build Need hardware suggestions for a gaming capable physics simulation workstation

[Jolli]

Budget (including currency): Roughly 400'000JPY (~3150USD)

Country: Japan

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: 

Games:

Mostly competitive multiplayer games (LoL, Apex, Val), FFXIV, some 4X games, and occasionally AAA (RDR2, AC Odyssey, etc.)

Workloads:

• Full scale kinetic simulations of plasma particles (PIC is my focus if you're familiar with what it is)
• CFD occasionally 
• Moving large data sets for processing and visualization 

Other details

Games aside, I'm looking into something with a lot of threads and memory capacity (64GB min with room to expand). I have scholarship money coming in to continue upgrading so I only really need the essentials to get up and running. The intended purpose of this machine is prototyping simulations I'm working on for my thesis. For me, more performance means more flexibility with the size of simulations I can test (when the size of the system of particles gets small, you can get numerical instabilities). Reliability is also pretty important; There will almost certainly be times where it is left running at high loads for days at a time, at certain stages this will probably be a regular occurrence and I'd prefer to not have to replace and key components over the next 3-4 years. 

 

I'm mostly looking for a combo of CPU+mobo+PSU suggestions, ECC memory is unnecessary. GPU is something I can fit in with whatever I have left and I'm happy to go a little overbudget (i.e. into my own pocket). Right now I'm struggling between just grabbing one of the current gen Ryzen 9s, or waiting for whatever AMD has coming this fall, I'm quite uninformed about recent developments. Last time I built a PC was 2018. 

 

Also, if there are any HPC experts around, the stuff I'm working on will be run on a SX-Aurora TSUBASA based cluster. I'm entirely unclear on what moving my code to a vector based system entails but if you have any advice in this area it would be highly appreciated. I'm not much of a computing person, and while there are a lot of experts around me, my Japanese isn't great so technical conversations get hard fast for me here. 

 

Thank you very much for your time and help!

[Makaroni]

I would recommend to either go with a thredripper solution or wait till ryzen 7000 series with a romour (so take it with a grain of salt) that there will be a 24 core 48 thread CPU or just go with the standard 16 core 32 thread CPU 7950x.

Added bonus to that ryzen 7000 series will support ddr5 6000 CL30 which is great news both for speed and latency and ofc ECC baby! ddr5 has set a standard of 2x16 kits being the standard so you can technically either get 64 gigs for 4x16 or just go with 2x32.

a PSU i would go with any standard 1000w PSU from any reputable brand like supersonic (idk?), evga, corsair, seasonic, superflower, 80+ gold.

If you can`t wait till Intel 13th gen or Ryzen 7000 just go with thredripper (7302) 16 core 32 thread (128MB of L3 cache) it costs about 1000 USD (CPU alone)

[Jolli]

Thanks for the advice! If there truly is a 24 core Ryzen in the 7000 series that would definitely be ideal and I may just hold off and save up and suffer through whatever my gaming laptop can handle. As long as it can support up to 128GB of memory somewhere down the line I'll be good. I've definitely considered threadripper but I'm really not sure which one to get an they seem kind of hard to get around here. 

 

What are the advantages of DDR5 if you don't mind informing me further? The biggest bottleneck for these kind of simulations is always first memory capacity, and second compute speed so I'm not sure if going for DDR5 right at the outset would be the best for my purposes. 

 

Thanks again for your help and your response!

[brob]

AMD has just provided some details on its upcoming Zen 4 (Ryzen 7000) desktop offerings. Up to 16 cores, 32 threads with DDR5 memory and turbo clocks over 5GHz. There will be 3 motherboard streams, the more capable offering PCIe 5.0 lanes for storage. All in all a significant uplift.

 

Q4 2022 should also see the introduction of new Intel CPU. Likely a refinement of its recently introduced models. Quite possibly with up to 24 cores (32 threads).

 

If you can wait, you will likely be able to get a significantly more capable system with the budget available.

 

The current Ryzen platform is at end-of-life. While still very capable, it's full upgrade path is known and available today.

 

If you decide on purchasing now, something like the following meets your requirements. There is a fair bit of room for a decent GPU.

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 3.4 GHz 16-Core Processor  ($548.99 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 280 72.8 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($129.99 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte X570S AERO G ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($299.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 128 GB (4 x 32 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory  ($484.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Kingston KC3000 2.048 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($308.86 @ Amazon) 
Case: Fractal Design Meshify 2 Compact ATX Mid Tower Case  ($123.99 @ Walmart) 
Power Supply: Corsair RMx (2021) 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($134.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $2031.80
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-05-25 09:40 EDT-0400

[Makaroni]

1 hour ago, Jolli said:

Thanks for the advice! If there truly is a 24 core Ryzen in the 7000 series that would definitely be ideal and I may just hold off and save up and suffer through whatever my gaming laptop can handle. As long as it can support up to 128GB of memory somewhere down the line I'll be good. I've definitely considered threadripper but I'm really not sure which one to get an they seem kind of hard to get around here. 

 

What are the advantages of DDR5 if you don't mind informing me further? The biggest bottleneck for these kind of simulations is always first memory capacity, and second compute speed so I'm not sure if going for DDR5 right at the outset would be the best for my purposes. 

 

Thanks again for your help and your response!

speed mostly capacity and lower voltages. and of-course with better timings as DDR5 matures (ECC memory is mandatory for all ddr5 chips)

Overall technological advancements and upgradability. DDR4 and ryzen 5000 is at its end of life and like @brob said for AMDs keynotes i can`t really add to it. the build he put up for you is also solid. 

I personally work with data management as a business analyist and i have my own 5950x as a working machine while my 5800x is for gaming. I`m most likely going to skip this generation and go directly for whatever is avaliable during 2024-2025 since my current setup of 3200mhz C14 64gb of ram and 5950x do the job well enough.

[Jolli]

Thanks @brob for the info on Zen 4 and the very nice parts list, this really helps me get an idea of how I should plan things out. And thanks @Makaroni for the additional info on DDR5. 

 

I think I'm pretty sold on waiting for Zen 4, the only thing I'm now concerned about is whether or not I'll be able to actually get my hands on one. It would suck hard to wait until fall only to get priced out by scalpers. I'm also slightly concerned about the cost difference for DDR5 memory, I seem to remember DDR4 being quite a bit more expensive than DDR3 when it was first being introduced.

 

I'm not sure if you guys have any more insights with that you can share but thanks again for your time, I really appreciate it!

[brob]

With waiting at the very least you should be able to get a good deal on Zen 3.

 

With Zen 4 being DDR5 only, prices should fall rapidly. Memory is very competitive and volume sensitive.

 

There should also be less expensive PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives. Possibly some reasonably priced PCIe 5.0 drives.